KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Jacob Peterson is back to full training with Sporting Kansas City, but the veteran winger might not be the club's last missing piece as they head toward the end of the regular season and the playoffs beyond that.
Peterson took part in Monday's training session, his first since sustaining a partial hamstring tendon tear in Sporting's 2-0 loss at Vancouver on Aug. 10, and stayed on after that for some extra fitness work.
“He's coming along,” manager Peter Vermes said. “He's getting back into the rhythm of it. That's the piece he's got to get through. But he's looking OK.”
Peterson, who has two goals in 19 appearances this season, offered a similar assessment.
“The MRI looks good, and it looks like it's healing properly,” he told MLSsoccer.com after the session. “Now it's just about getting the soccer fitness and being sharp with the ball.”
Center back Aurelien Collin is still being held out of training, though, after missing Sporting's last two matches across all competitions with an ankle injury. Vermes did not know if Collin would be available for Friday's away date with Eastern Conference leaders D.C. United (8 pm ET; NBCSN, live stream at NBCSports.com) and also has not set a timetable for Peterson's return to match action.
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Peterson acknowledged the frustration of having to watch Sporting go through their current rough patch in league play, with five losses in their last six MLS matches, but also said he did not want to rush back too quickly.
“It was difficult, obviously, with some of the results that we've been having recently, to be in the training room and not be involved at all,” he said. “But we had to be patient because we needed to let the tendon heal – otherwise I wouldn't have been able to function nearly as well as I would have wanted to.
“So it was hard to be patient, but I'm glad that we were. The training staff was excellent in really reining me in and making sure I didn't get ahead of myself.”
